Steve Ballmer Says Tech Firms Should Be As Accountable As NBA Teams (backchannel.com) 89
New submitter mirandakatz writes: Steve Ballmer has worn many hats -- as the CEO of Microsoft and the owner of the LA Clippers, to start -- and his latest endeavor, launched earlier this year, is a comprehensive trove of government statistics called USA Facts. Ballmer recently sat down with Backchannel's Steven Levy to discuss publishing government information, owning the Clippers, why he bought stock in Twitter, and what tech can learn from the world of professional sports: "There's no hiding in sports. How well you're doing is all entirely transparent, and there's no way to talk yourself out of a jam, or confuse yourself. It's hardcore -- you either win or you lose. Your season's over, or it's not over. It's just binary. It's the highest accountability thing in the world. In basketball, every human on the planet can evaluate your performance. All the analytics are available. Everybody can watch all your games or write about it -- the columnist knows absolutely everything that the general manager knows. Everything. Your individual human performance can get reviewed in a way that never happens in business. And every 24 seconds, I can tell you how good our teamwork is. That's high accountability." In response to a question asking if a tech company should publish everyone's salary and be transparent to the press, Ballmer replied: "I only worked at one tech company, but I would say, the opportunity to improve accountability in the tech industry is not insubstantial. It's different than Procter & Gamble, which got to show good soap sales every quarter. Some companies making money right now say they're investing for the future. Where's the accountability? You can say, 'Well, the ultimate accountability's the stock price.' It sort of is, but it sort of isn't. You can talk your stock price up. But you can't talk up wins and losses."
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Luddites, luddites, luddites!
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Steve Ballmer tried his best to destroy Microsoft, but it was too big to fail.
He almost succeeded when he tried to purchase Yahoo.
He's right. (Score:2, Interesting)
And oddly, while I depised him at MS, I kind of like him as the owner of the Clips.
Seems to be an "everyman" type owner. Similar to Cuban.
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Why, when they're getting all this free exposure?
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As he rides the team's fortunes further into the ground...
No he's not, he's fundamentally wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Wins and losses in a sports league are literally a zero-sum game. For you to win, someone else has to lose.
That's not true in business and economics in general - it's not a zero-sum game (which is the fundamental failing of Marx, btw...). When you buy something, both you and the seller tend to think they "won". You got what you wanted at a price you were willing to pay, and they got the amount of money they wanted for what they sold you.
So Steve said this.. woop-te-doo (Score:5, Insightful)
Any [mb]illionaire can own a football team, basketball team or a villa in France. How utterly, utterly undemanding and uninspiring. So they win! So they lose! So what.
Some billionaires do REAL things with their wealth for the benefit of mankind, like start their own space program, or fund cures for malaria or cancer.
Till YOU do that, Steve, you're just another one of the bunch.
Ballmer Doesn't get it (Score:2, Interesting)
Ballmer has discovered big data. Great. However, he is prejudiced by a philosophy that in order for someone to win, others must lose.
The Microsoft way is failing. There is a time to compete and a time to collaborate. While Steve is trying to compete, others have learned to collaborate without him.
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Humans have a no-bullshit psychological need for entertainment. Depression is a real condition that can be life-threatening, and entertainment is part of any mental health maintenance plan.
It's rather difficult for me to grasp what the fidget-spinner society of reality TV addicts defines as "entertainment" these days, since most of it is rather mindless and pointless, to include professional sports. The innocent fans that have lost their lives due to alcohol-fueled rioting after a game or match. The diehard fans who become so depressed due to sports gambling debts that they take their own lives. The players who have paid the ultimate price. Something as simple as meditation can be used to
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You're very naive about what a million dollars can buy.
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The report omitted to mention that at the end of the interview he got up and started chanting "Salaries! Salaries! Salaries! Salaries!".
His throwing a chair at the guy who brought him slightly too-warm Evian was also left out.
I don't care who said it (Score:2)
Can we, for once, focus on what was said and whether it makes sense, rather than who said it?
Anonymized quotes might fix that. Call it "accidental wisdom", if you will.
Ballmer is such a mental midget (Score:1)
Right place, right time, nothing more
This guy has always been an idiot. The moron who laughed and scoffed at the iPhone. And now he reveres sports. Ugh.
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I don't make crap. You can reveal how much I make if you want. Reveal management salaries instead.
It is public record, ever read an annual report?
Very true. They also have to disclose major shareholders (which are often management) and other big-price incentives such as option grants. Salary, after all, is commonly the smallest part of a top-level exec's income.
Would he have said that... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hence "replied" rather than "answered".
As a coach, you can also throw a chair (Score:5, Insightful)
Where did Mr. Ballmer get the idea that he is so smart that people should listen to him?
I'm thinking that this whole train of thought came about that just like a pro basketball coach a CEO can throw a chair so the two endeavours must be completely interrelated and you can transfer ideas & concepts between the two and they make complete sense.
Over the years, I've heard of *many* ideas like this:
- Business is like hunting, if you don't return with skins, you've failed
- Business is like prostitution, you get fucked or you're the fucker
- Business is like a parent, you coddle, worry, teach and it takes years to find out if you were successful
I don't think Mr. Ballmer has ever appreciated how lucky he was to be at the right place at the right time - otherwise he'd just be some obnoxious nobody that people try to ignore.
As it is, he's just a rich obnoxious nobody that people try to ignore.
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Where did Mr. Ballmer get the idea that he is so smart that people should listen to him?
Same place as Mr. Trump I guess.
Re:As a coach, you can also throw a chair (Score:4, Insightful)
So wait, from you, and other commenters, we're supposed to not value his opinion (without actually debating what he said) because you attack his authority. ... except... by the same logic, why should we be listening to you, over that of a billionaire, ex-CEO?
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I asked the same, further up. Maybe we should focus on what was said, rather than who said it.
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Small minds discuss people.
Nostalgia (Score:2)
Not like an NBA season (Score:2)
Obviously, success is ultimately important, but in tech you gotta be willing to fail. Can't be afraid to fail. Technology is a very different endeavor than sports.
Look at the striking difference in Nadella's response to the AI debacle Microsoft had some months ago:
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Nadella:
"Keep pushing, and know that I am with you ... (The) key is to keep learning and improving." -- Inc. [inc.com]
Tay was about as technically sophisticated as Racter, a stand-alone chat-bot released in 1984 by Mindscape. It just remembered everything you typed to it, and randomly brought up things that you had mentioned before. It was basically ELIZA with a phrase-learning function.
That was why Tay was so easily punked by internet pranksters. It was, like, a mere 30 years later, but the Microsoft "AI Team" simply 'phoned it in' (probably at 2400 baud), and Microsoft just shoveled it out the door like all of the ot
I never understood why we put so much stock (Score:2)
translation (Score:3)
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You can't exclusively blame Ballmer, the toxicity of Microsoft's strategy was in full effect by the time he took charge, and even Bill Gates was pissed about it. Still, he didn't seem to do them many favors.
The bigger problem with his comments is this: a basketball team can be a complete failure one year and a smashing success a couple years later. They still get a seat at the table. A basketball team that exclusively loses won't go out of business, and will instead be given preferential draft picks. Th
How to become a millionaire investing in Ballmer (Score:4, Insightful)
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A sports analogy of some sort? No comprende.
In basic simple english: when you're a fan of a sports team, no matter what you say, no matter what you do, the team pays absolutely no attention to you - the consumer - at all. You could have box seats for the entire season, but when it comes to drafting new talent, they'll ignore your advice and get that idiot from Duke anyway.
And, turns out, that's Microsoft's business model. Ignore the consumer, what he says, what he wants. Just do random crap and call it good.
Sooooo.... about that USA Facts site... (Score:2)
That USA Facts site sounds like an interesting idea, but the implementation could sure use some work. Navigate to the homepage and you're given a search box: What do you want to know about? "Search for some things."
Off the top of my head, I decide to compare the number of deaths by firearm due to murder and the number of firearm deaths due to suicide. And ... for the life of my, I can't figure out how to make it call up that information. Which is odd, since if you went to the original Department of Justice
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Well at least it's possible, unlike MongoDB.
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Search was always something of an Achilles heel with him, I think...
Full of shit ... (Score:2)
... as a Christmas turkey.
Ballmer hasn't seen his name in print lately, is what this is about.
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and the workers should be unionized like the teams (Score:1)
and the workers should be unionized like the teams!
As Accountable As MBA Teams (Score:4, Funny)
If there's anything a team of MBAs isn't, it's accountable.
Oh, wait...
There's some serious confusion here (Score:2)
How the NBA team is doing as a team playing basketball, sure, that's out there. That's something along the lines of how a company is doing in market share.
How the NBA team is doing as a BUSINESS is quite different. And that's equivalent to how a tech company is doing overall. And it isn't quite so obvious how to measure that in either case.
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The Lakers are LA. Everybody knows that.
The Clippers are. . . LA? . . . Really? I've lived in LA for 10 years and never knew that.
MBA Talk (Score:1)
Spoken like the genuine sort of MBA idiot to whom the U.S. has handed over the keys of the planet to.
Just like cancer (Score:2)
It might be a cancer according to him, but there is no hiding in OSS either.
Much of what he describes for the sport teams, is true for OSS.